1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to wireless communications and more particularly to configurable wireless communication devices.
2. Description of Related Art
Communication systems are known to support wireless and wire lined communications between wireless and/or wire lined communication devices. Such communication systems range from national and/or international cellular telephone systems to the Internet to point-to-point in-home wireless networks. Each type of communication system operates in accordance with one or more communication standards. For instance, wireless communication systems may operate in accordance with one or more standards including, but not limited to, IEEE 802.11, Bluetooth, global system for mobile communications (GSM), code division multiple access (CDMA), local multi-point distribution systems (LMDS), radio frequency identification (RFID), Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE), General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), WCDMA, LTE (Long Term Evolution), WiMAX (worldwide interoperability for microwave access), and/or variations thereof.
Depending on the type of wireless communication system, a wireless communication device, such as a cellular telephone, two-way radio, personal digital assistant (PDA), personal computer (PC), laptop computer, computer tablet, home entertainment equipment, RFID reader, RFID tag, et cetera communicates directly or indirectly with other wireless communication devices. For direct communications (also known as point-to-point communications), the participating wireless communication devices tune their receivers and transmitters to the same channel or channels (e.g., one of a plurality of radio frequency (RF) carriers of the wireless communication system or a particular RF frequency for some systems) and communicate over the channel(s). For indirect wireless communications, each wireless communication device communicates directly with an associated base station (e.g., for cellular services) and/or an associated access point (e.g., for an in-home or in-building wireless network) via an assigned channel. To complete a communication connection between the wireless communication devices, the associated base stations and/or associated access points communicate with each other directly, via a system controller, via the public switch telephone network, via the Internet, and/or via some other wide area network.
For each wireless communication device to participate in wireless communications, it includes a built-in radio transceiver (i.e., receiver and transmitter) or is coupled to an associated radio transceiver (e.g., a station for in-home and/or in-building wireless communication networks, RF modem, etc.). As is known, the receiver is coupled to an antenna and includes a low noise amplifier, one or more intermediate frequency stages, a filtering stage, and a data recovery stage. As is also known, the transmitter includes a data modulation stage, one or more intermediate frequency stages, and a power amplifier.
To implement a radio transceiver, a wireless communication device includes a plurality of integrated circuits (ICs) and a plurality of discrete components. For example, a wireless communication device that supports 2G, 3G, and/or 4G cellular telephone protocols includes a baseband processing IC, a power management IC, a radio transceiver IC, a transmit/receive (T/R) switch, an antenna, and a plurality of discrete components. The discrete components include surface acoustic wave (SAW) filters, power amplifiers, duplexers, inductors, and capacitors. Such discrete components add several dollars (US) to the bill of material for the wireless communication device, but are necessary to achieve the strict performance requirements of the 2G, 3G, and/or 4G protocols.